Sermon Slam

On Thursday, I went to a sermon slam.  I wasn't participating, although the thought intrigued me.  But the winner went on to a regional sermon slam, and I'll be at the Create in Me retreat when that happens--so it didn't seem fair to compete.  Plus, I thought I should observe one first.  I've never seen one, although I suspected it would be like a poetry slam.

As we waited for the sermon slam to start, we had dinner, which was a great opportunity for fellowship.  My fellow students at my table had never seen a sermon slam either.  I talked about poetry slams, which was a new concept to the students who ate dinner with me.  I realized I've never really been to many in-person poetry slam either, only one or two, back in the early years of this century, when it seemed like everyone wanted to compete.

The sermon slam on Thursday was less raucous than some of those early poetry slams.  We did clap, but we gave everyone the same amount of applause.  We did score the sermon presentations, but we filled out a paper slip which kept the results private.  Four women competed, and everyone won prizes.

For the first round, the participants had the Bible passage in advance: the transfiguration on the mountain story. Everyone gave a dynamic, compelling sermon.  They had a seven minute time limit, and everyone used the full time.  As with my Foundations of Preaching class, I was pleasantly surprised by how four people could have a passage--and not an obscure passage--and we could enjoy such different sermons.

For the second round, each participant got a passage from the Old Testament, all passages from the revised common lectionary, not something obscure.  One of the organizers had a bag of passages written out on paper, and the participant reached in to choose one.  They had the option to reject the first one and try again. 

Each participant had 3 minutes to work on a two minute sermon.  I found these sermons more dynamic.  Was it because they were truly more dynamic?  Did I just like them better because I knew that the prep time was shorter?  Did I like them better because the sermons themselves were shorter?

All too soon, it was time to go to class, my Church History II class, which didn't have the same energy level as a sermon slam.  However, it was the kind of afternoon that left me happy to be able to be part of it all, happy to have sampled some of what I hoped that life on campus would be.